Some Socio-Demographic Characteristics of Inland Amateur Fishermen: Case of Turkey

Abstract

This study was carried out to determine some socio-demographic characteristics of freshwater amateur anglers who are social media users in interactive area. Fishers were surveyed using an online questionnaire. The survey comprised 24 questions. The first set of questions collected demographic data and was compatible with other major recreational fisher surveys. The survey was conducted with 2045 people. The online questionnaire applied in this study has participated in 71 different provinces of Turkey. A very important proportion of amateur fishers participating in the survey was male (99.9%). When the occupational distributions of fishers are examined, unemployment was the most common with 41.7% and followed by self-employed (26.3%), civil servant (16.2%), retired (8.1%) and student (6.2%) respectively. Although the angling fish is generally regarded as a retired occupation, their rate was very low due to the application of the questionnaire interactively. This finding is supported by the fact that 76.7% of the respondents are between 25-46 ages. The majority of angling fishers are single (76.7%) and the average monthly income of them is 2845 TL. The average monthly income of 51.2% of participants was found between 1500 and 3000 TL. 40.6% of amateur anglers are high school graduates and 41.5% of them had university (pre-undergraduate, undergraduate and graduate) education. It can be said that the education level of amateur anglers participating in this study is higher than Turkey's commercial fisheries in many lakes and dam lakes.